I thought this was great until the last few days when I was out of town for a wedding and got out of my usual habit of meditating twice a day and also ran out of vitamins.

Sounds to me OP just needs to keep doing his regular sits :) However, I would be wary of the need to make the practice more pure or natural. This can just be another set of thoughts and ideas with regards to the practice, which can (ironically?) hold you back. Just keep sitting and notice the ideas you have with regards to the practice and return to it.

Unfortunately I do not have a decent webcam available. The one I do have produces a lot of static even in the best of conditions. I used a candle instead as the focus of my meditation, since you mentioned an object could have produced the same results.

I have tried this only half an hour after reading your reply, so I was somewhat excited to try it. This did not help with my practice as you might imagine.
Analytical thoughts interfered quite a bit, but during the stretches where I could focus on the object properly I experienced the same peace as which I mentioned before.

However, I did not experience the same connection with my body. This could be due to a change in posture, the lack of focus during this particular practice, or the lack of seeing my own body as a means of grounding myself in the now.
I will have to try it out some more to see whether I can notice the same energy flow as I did when using the mirror. To be clear though; I do not think mirrors have any mystical properties. If anything, the picture of seeing myself, my body existing from an 'outside' perspective probably gave me an additional anchor to the present.

One thing I did notice that was different however. I sat quite close to the candle, probably a meter and a half away from it. I noticed after a initial period of some minutes that I would twitch my eyes, especially when my mind would pick up steam and would almost steal away my presence. I would snap my focus all over the surrounding area in an instant, seemingly to scan the environment.

This was much less noticeable when using the mirror. I think this could be an advantage, as it seems to be a very good indicator of being present. The clarity and reality of the present was especially intense in the moments when my eyes would stop twitching.

Hey JCashish, Would you mind expanding a bit on your thoughts about using mirrors as a tool during meditation?
I have been meditating for roughly a year now, mostly by focussing on the breath like most people. However, lately I have discovered that meditating in front of a mirror lets me feel energy moving through my body in ways I have never been able to feel during regular meditation. When doing this, and especially after doing this, I feel a sense of peace I have not felt before.
During meditation my sense of color and the appearance of my face seem to change if I am not focussed on particular features of myself. This doesnt really disturb me, and I dont think it is distracting me from practice, but I may very well be wrong.

Do you think there is any harm in this? I have no teacher and Im honestly just trying things out to see where I end up. I have read many of your comments before and think your thoughts would be most helpful.

First, let me ask you about your experience with mind alteration.
Have you experienced anything like it before? If not, tread carefully, because you are going into unknown territory.
Your mind is a very personal construct, and the effects of whatever you use to alter it are going to have very personal and obviously subjective effects.

So, before you dive in, educate yourself. Explorers of yore (I always wanted to use that word!) did not haphazardly sail the oceans.
They took precautions to the best of their ability. So should you.

One precaution is to keep meditating.
Meditation tempers your mind.
When experienced in meditation, your mind will become flexible and resilient at will; something you will need in the face of possible despair.
There is no telling what you will encounter once you mess around with your mind.
If you think your mind being 'empty' during meditation is scary or wrong, then I would personally not use LSD at all, and only try shrooms in very small dosages so you can carefully measure and control its effects.
And don't do it alone. If something does go wrong, it will give you an anchor in reality.
If nothing goes wrong, your interactions with the person being there (sober) with you, will give you insights in how you normally look at the world.

The interface was redone in X3:TC compared to X3:R, if thats what you mean. I haven't played X3:R, but the interface of TC isn't all that bad to be honest. Its a mess of too many hotkeys, but thats the nature of the game. Once you get used to the game it can be very addicting. I have roughly 300 hours into the game myself, and with all the mods you can install its easy to just keep playing it more than that.

The only issue I have with your post is the emphasis on the 300+ million people part. I think its too one sided, and imo you should include the population density in it as well. I think that it is much easier to support a larger number of people when you have a vast amount of land to work with. I don't claim that having a large amount of land always leads to a better capability of supporting the people, but I doubt it has negligible effects. I'm not arguing against your post mind you, I'm just wondering if that particular argument is all that strong.

The great thing about flac, or any other lossless format, is that you can convert it to any lossy format without introducing additional quality loss. If you convert an mp3 to any other lossy format you will lose more quality than when you would convert it from a lossless format.

Also, once you upgrade audio equipment you might find out that you really can hear the difference (I'm not saying you will, just that the possibility is there). Disk space is cheap, so why not go for the best?

Not to mention, in the future there may be better formats to convert to. If you stick to mp3 you'll never be able to convert your music to it without losing quality.

I don't think its fair to put it that way. During the early 1900s, the rate of technological change was fairly low. As a result, the people that grew up during that period were simply not used to the increase in pace we now experience. Moreover, people could not afford technology. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there were many technological advances between 1900 and 1940 which were affordable to the general public. I can think of radios, (silent) movies and ballpoint pens. The digital age changed everything.

The key question is, in my opinion at least, if humans are able to continuously adapt to new tech when they grow up in an era of rapid, continuous change, and retain that ability when ageing. If humans simply cannot keep adapting as they age, then it we'll look like primitives indeed.

On the other hand, it is also a matter of personality and commitment. If you keep trying new things, and dont get too set in your ways, then you stand a much better chance to adapt to new tech in the future.

We're in uncharted territory, never before were humans so exposed to rapid change as now. Its up to us to find out how it will work out. Thats very exciting in my opinion. We're the explorers of technological change.

Ah yes, I thought I should've clarified that bit. The thing is, there is no certainty that that would have the same impact as it would for the people from the 1900s vs us. If you were to graph it in adaptation vs rate of change, whose to say its not a logarithmic increase instead of a linear increase? Or I could be wrong entirely, and it could be an exponential curve. Its anyones bet really. I'm just saying there is more to it than just simple extrapolation.

Again, I only have issues with the analogy, which is what people apparently do not understand. You are not a product because you have a choice. Products do not have a say in the matter regardless. You have the money and people want your money. You have all the power, which would never be the case if you were a product. You can say you dont like being tracked, you can say you dont like data harvesting for usage in ads and I would even agree with you on many points. This does not make the analogy of you being the product correct. In fact, it reminds me too much about 'you wouldn't download a car' analogy which is equally absurd. If anything it is a straw man argument because it leaves out important details for the sake of argument.

Thats not exactly true. Suppose (hypothetically) that all users of facebook are doing nothing with it except spreading memes. Now I hope you agree with me that you can't harvest much data from this. The data you supply is useless, targeted advertising (which is what this data mining is all about anyways) doesn't work anymore and the site will go down in flames sooner or later, because it doesn't add any significant value for the kind of money they're asking for their data. So we, as users of facebook or whatever service are holding the key. That doesn't sound like we're a product at all to me.

At the end of the day, you have money in your pocket that the advertisers are after. You supply data to facebook or whatever service you want to use and they will let you. To get to your money, advertisers use the data you yourself supply, which facebook uses to provide you a service (and make a ton of money themselves in the process). The point is that there is no such thing as a classical producer-consumer relationship here, and as such products as you know it never enter the equation other than through the traditional consumer/producer model.. and guess what? You're still the consumer in the end, since they want you to buy their stuff. Under complete transparency, it would be the very definition of win-win. Now the lack of transparency is something you could argue about. I am not for the idea of data harvesting without transparency mind you. I just don't think you should consider yourself a product if you use services such as facebook.

However, I do think you (and others that have replied to me) have a fair point in saying that the lack of transparency can make it appear like you are the product. I dont necessarily agree whether this is the case or not in fact, but I do agree that this is the appearance when looking at it somewhat objectively. I just happen to think the truth is far more nuanced than that.

But you are paying for it. You're just not paying for it with money. You're paying it with your data. Your data is what they're after. Its not you what they're after. Which is exactly why you are not a product at all. If anything you, as a provider of data are a subcontractor of facebook and getting paid, not with money, but with a service. You are entirely in control of the amount of data they get, which is exactly the same for the Xbox One. Or does this device not come with a power cord?

Someone got paid? You are underestimating the stupidity of our politicians I think. A smart politician would only do such things because they get paid for it. I think the people in charge (Opstelten?) actually thought it was a good idea. Falls completely in line with the behaviour of his fellow party member Teeven too.

Is it high pricing which worries you about the housing market? I can't say I'm aware of the housing prices in the UK.

We could use some rampant inflation to whip our housing market into shape as well... I'll be curious to see what happens here in 15 years time if no reforms will be done and the euro is still going 'strong'...

Thats interesting. I realize I do not know much about Germany's situation at all, outside of assumptions. Could you elaborate on that practice in particular or provide a link with explanation? Thanks :)

Emphasis 'by scientific means'. I've skimmed through your link (I have allotted my time to other activities today) and only see philosophic inquiry.

'By scientific means' implies there is a formal system of reasoning, otherwise it wouldn't be science would it? Without a formal system of reasoning or a formal method of conducting and repeating experiments there simply is no science.

Now, I'm not a proponent of placing the value of science over the value of philosophy (of the mind), and I dont mean to give that impression. In fact, I feel bad for putting on my 'science hat' in this sub as it really has nothing to do with what this sub stands for (imo).

With that said, I do think we are able to understand the mind, I'm just saying that science isn't going to be the way we will figure out how the mind works.

//edit: I really want to emphasise that I'm just writing down what I'm thinking and am probably horrible wrong on multiple things. The problem, for me personally at least, is that whenever I try to formally define something the 'logic' and 'reasoning' take over and assume everything I know to be absolute truths. They are not, and I want to emphasise that what I'm writing down is just my interpretation at this specific point in time.

Yes, but it is a very specific method of inquiry. You either have a complete1, closed system and deduce new information/statements from it, such as in mathematics. Otherwise you have an incomplete system and as such you need to have empirical evidence to support claims, as you can never deduce any 'logical truths' from an incomplete system.

The talk you're referencing talks about this in the sense that science has assumed certain things to be undisputable. This is not a problem in say, mathematics, but is a problem for the empirical sciences, where being open to new ideas is actually important. Provided these new ideas are supported by evidence of course.

I'm not arguing against anything related to unsubstantiated conjecture... its just that its not science and never will be science until you have proof. Once you have proof, other than beliefs, then you can apply for the science label. Not sooner.

1 There actually is a proof that formal systems can never be complete, though it doesn't seem to disturb mathematicians much it seems.